The sun never sets on the enslaved of the red
planet. Its rays bring out the slaves to the housetops of Lesser Helium.
Faithfully and happily, they arrange canopies so that their finely-bred
mistresses might shade themselves from the sun. The sun also shines on
the mountain city of Gathol, but her slaves do not see it. They labor abjectly
in the underground diamond mines. Meanwhile, far to the south, the slave
women of Ghasta spin the wonderfully strong fabric from the fine webs made
by the hideous spiders in the forest along the river Syl. On the western
edges of the Great Toonolian Marches, 20 slaves in scant harnesses are
on their knees to roll out a huge carpet so that Phundahl’s jeddara might
approach the Great Tur with dignity. Wherever there is civilization on
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars, there is slavery.

Indeed, the author provided glimpses of the institution
of slavery in every corner of Barsoom. Slaves were there from the courts
of the therns and the Temple of Issus in the extreme south to the doomed
cities of Kadabra and Pankor in the far north. Zodanaga, Manator Toonol,
and Jahar had slaves, as did Tjanath, Gooli, Amhor, Kamtol, and Invak.

Not only was slavery on Barsoom a global phenomenon, but
it was also apparent that great numbers of people were held in servility.
In the land of Manator the slaves from Gathol and their descendants numbered
near a million people. Their percentage of the total population was unknown,
but in the Black Pirate city of Kamtol there were known to be 5,000 slaves
among the city’s 200,000 inhabitants. Having no other indication, perhaps
that ratio of 2 ½ per cent enslaved can be assumed typical
of most Martian cities. Of course, there are the unusual cases, such as
Ghasta, where all 600 inhabitants were slaves of their jed Ghron. Then
there were the Bantoomians, who seem to have had no slaves and performed
their own labor.

If slavery was common among the human races of Barsoom,
what about among the Green Martians? As violent and warlike as they were,
surely they also accumulated and used slaves. But is there an indication
anywhere in Burroughs’ Mars stories that they did so? That question will
be addressed again at the close of this survey of slavery as practiced
by Barsoom’s more “civilized” races.

On Barsoom, a slave was a person held in servitude to
toil for his or her owner. In that light, Dejah Thoris was not a slave
of the Tharks in A Princess of Mars. Instead, they considered her
a prisoner to be used for ransom or torture. On the other hand, Carthoris
was a slave of the Black Pirates, who forced him to work in the remodeling
of their subterranean galleries.

The slaves of Barsoom can be categorized according to
the kind of work they did. First, there were those who can be classified
as house slaves. A slave announced Hadron when he visited John Carter’s
palace in A Fighting Man of Mars. In he palace of Mu Tel in Toonol,
slaves conducted Vad Varo and his companions to their sleeping quarters
and later brought the visitors weapons. At a banquet in Kamtol, “a small
army of slaves” bore food and wine to the guests. These house slaves also
had duties outside the palace. In Zodanga, such slaves were messengers
and in Pankor, John Carter, then posing as a slave, went to the marketplace,
“where slaves gathered to buy and sell for their owners.”

Then there were the body servants. In Swords of Mars,
John Carter chose Zanda as his personal slave in the house of Fal Sivas.
“Her duties would consist of keeping my apartments clean, shining my metal,
sharpening my swords and daggers, and otherwise making herself useful.”

Red Martian ladies also had personal servants. The clearest
picture of the duties of such handmaidens appears in The Chessmen of
Mars, when the “slave girl” Uthia tended to her master, Tara of Helium.
Uthia prepared Tara’s bath and afterwards rubbed her mistress’ body with
a “sweet smelling semi-liquid substance.” Later the slave girl built Tara’s
hair into a becoming coiffure and adjusted Tara’s jewel-encrusted trappings
to her figure before the mistress went forth to mingle with John Carter’s
guests. The Warlord himself had seen a more exaggerated example of a handmaiden’s
duties years before in the amphitheatre of the Black Pirates in Omean.
The women of the First Born, Carter noted, “do absolutely nothing. Slaves
wash them, slaves dress them, slaves feed them There are some, even, who
have slaves that talk for them, and I saw one who sat during the rights
with closed eyes while a slave narrated to her the events that were transpiring
within the arena.”

Even being a simple handmaiden could be dangerous. In
Swords
of Mars, when Ur Jan’s agents kidnapped Dejah Thoris in Helium, they
left behind the bodies of two slave women, who had been sleeping in their
mistress’ quarters.

In the next category are the slaves who do security work
for their owners. In Thuvia, Maid of Mars, Carthoris had two armed
slaves guarding his flier. In Phundahl, when Vad Varo and his companions
spent the night in a public lodging house, “two armed slaves patrolled
the aisle to guard the guests from assassins.” In another public house
in Kadabra, female slaves paced “back and forth among the sleepers within,
ready to notify the warriors should their presence be required.” Slaves
also served as bodyguards, as John Carter did when he posed as Gor-don’s
slave in Llana of Gathol.

Then there were the large number of slaves who did civic
work. In Gathol, warriors brought in slaves to be sold at the public market
to labor for their owners in the diamond mines. Ages ago the First Born
also used slaves underground to dig the long tunnel from the Temple of
Issus to the principal temple of Matai Shang. Slaves also performed other
civic duties. In Dusar, Carthoris and Kar Komak encountered a slave running
a “drop” in the palace, and when John Carter was in Kamtol, he made reference
to red slaves being street cleaners and garbage collectors for the black
men.

Another group of slaves provided their masters with entertainment.
When the Black Pirates from Dor visited Kamtol, they were entertained by
dancing slave girls. The most common way slaves were used for entertainment
on Barsoom, however, was fighting in the arena. In the city of Manator,
“there were scores of slaves and prisoners being forced into the games
by their owners or the government. There live players usually fought for
a slave woman of great beauty. In one game, Gahan bribed his way to the
leadership of the all-slave Black Team, which defeated a team of criminals
for possession of the slave girls Tara and Lan-O. Slaves also provided
sport in the Lesser Games of Kamtol. “They are held about once a week in
a stadium inside the city, and here the rich nobles pit their warriors
or their slaves against those of other nobles in feats of strength, in
boxing, in wrestling, and in dueling.”

Finally, there is evidence that slaves were used for sexual
purposes. This was in spite of John Carter’s assurance the Martian men
possessed a “high and chivalrous humor (which) is always ample protection
for every woman in his household.” In Chessmen of Mars, it is implied
that the slave girls offered as prizes in the games of Jetan become the
playthings of the winning team, and E-Med indicated that in the upcoming
games he wanted to win Tara for sexual reasons. Also, Tavia was among thousands
of slave women in the palace of Tul Axtar in Jahar. The fact that she fled
after the Jeddak saw and summoned her indicates that Tavia, at least, did
not think he was going to ask her to do his laundry. Sexual services could
also be required of male slaves. In the royal apartments of Tjanath, Hadron
wandered into the forbidden quarters of the jeddara. “Her position was
most compromising, and from this harness I judged that her good-looking
companion was a slave.”

It’s probable that on Barsoom children born to slaves
also become slaves. However, most of the slaves who appear in Burroughs’
stories were once free before being enslaved. There were several ways of
entering the state of slavery on Mars. First, many were enslaved after
first becoming prisoners of war. That’s how Hin Abtol accumulated his million
slaves. He attacked and sacked smaller cities, and then flew away
to the frozen North with as many prisoners, mostly men, that his ships
could carry. Incidentally, John Carter reported that not all prisoners
of war could count on the luxury of slavery. The Warlord revealed that
most Martian countries, “kill their prisoners if they find it difficult
or impossible to take them home into slavery without endangering their
own ship.”

Second, slaves were often obtained through kidnapping.
In the inner gardens of the thern stronghold in Dor, John Carter saw the
First Born abducting the young girls of the therns to take them into slavery
in Omean. Carter also revealed the black men occasionally made raids in
Mars’ outer world. “It is then that they capture many females of the royal
houses of the red men, and take the newest battleships and the trained
artisans who build them, that they may copy what they cannot create.” Manator
was another country that obtained its slaves through raiding. Every three
to seven years the Manatorian raiding parties lingered along the roads
leading to Gathol. Entire caravans were captured and carried to Manator
to slave and die manning the Jetan squares.

Among those who were enslaved after being abducted were
Valla Dia, who was captured by the Phundahlians before being sold to Ras
Thavas; Phao, who was sold into slavery in Tjanath by the captain of the
ship on which she was sailing; and Zanda, who became a slave in Fal Sivas’
house after his men killed her escort and sized her on the streets of Zodanga.

Instead of going forth to captures slaves, some Barsomian
countries waited at home and let slaves come to them. The courts and gardens
of the therns were filled with red men and women who made the long pilgrimage
down the River Iss into enslavement. At the other pole, the yellow men
of Kadabra found a steady supply of labor among the wreckage of out-worlder
ships at the base of the magnetic Guardian of the North. “Will they never
cease their fatal curiosity?” asked a Kadbran officer. “Let us hope not,”
responded a companion. “For then what should we do for slaves and sport?”

Indeed, all over Barsoom it is obvious that being a stranger
was grounds for enslavement. In Tjanath, Tul Axtar tolerated no aliens
other than those brought in as prisoners and slaves. In Swords of Mars,
John Carter knew he risked being thrown into slavery if caught trying to
enter Zodanga without identification papers.

Once being a slave, there were a number of ways of regaining
one’s freedom. The first and surest way was to escape. The Village of Lost
Souls was peopled by slaves who occasionally escaped from the therns.
Tavia ran away from slavery in Tjanath, and John Carter himself escaped
slavery three times in Llana of Gathol.

A slave might work his way to freedom, as in Gathol, where
slaves in the diamond mines were normally permitted to return to their
own people after a year of faithful service. Another place where a slave
might work to earn his liberty was the arena. In Manator any man who survived
10 games of Jetan was given his freedom.

Sometimes a slave earned his freedom through a single
good deed. In A Fighting Man of Mars, the slave Kal Tavan first
tried to save Sanoma Tora from abduction by Tulj Axtar’s men, and then
later his information resulted in John Carter’s rescue mission to Jahar.
For this he was not only set free by Carter, but also eventually became
a dwar in Helium’s navy. (It is interesting that Kal Tavan was given his
freedom by John Carter, even though Tavan did not belong to the Warlord,
but rather was the faithful slave of Tor Hatan.) In Swords of Mars,
Fal Sivas offered the slave Woka his freedom if he would kill John Carter.
In the ensuing fight, Woka was indeed freed from his slavery, but it came
at the point of the Virginian’s sword.

There are other instances of slaves being freed by their
owners for various reasons, but surely the Great Emancipator of Barsoom
was John Carter. In The Chessmen of Mars, after arriving with his
fleet in Manator, he announced, ”I come only for my daughter and to free
the slaves from Gathol.” With that simple statement he freed perhaps a
million people throughout the land of Manator. The Warlord freed nearly
another million slaves when he went to Pankor at the end of Llana of
Gathol to thaw out the captives of Hin Abtol.

Finally, one could escape slavery on Barsoom through marriage.
In Dusar, the Jeddak Nutus married a slave woman, and the jed U-Thor married
Haja, a slave girl from Gathol, and made her a princess of Manatos. The
result was that A-Kor, the son of U-Thor and Haja, “might sit on the throne
of Manator with as perfect congruity as O-Tar himself.”

Incidentally, in his Martian books, Burroughs described
two slave uprisings, one a failure and one a success. The red slave women
rose against their masters in the amphitheatre of Issus in The Gods
of Mars. The women “wreaked the long-pent vengeance which at best could
but partially recompense them for the unspeakable cruelties and indignities
which their black masters had heaped upon them.” In the end, however, all
the women were cut down. A more successful uprising occurred in Manator.
When U-Thor attacked O-Tar’s city, the slaves from Gathol arose and destroyed
the palace guard. Soon afterwards John Carter arrived and, as noted earlier,
gave the slaves their freedom.

The institution of slavery on Barsoom carried with it
a set of socially mandated rules, customs, and procedures. Certainly, in
public a slave had his place. First of all, a slave generally wore the
sign of his status. In Pankor, Gor-don furnished John Carter with a harness
and insignia, which definitely marked the Warlord as a slave of the former’s
household. When accompanying their owner in public, a well-trained slave
took a position indicative of his subservience. While riding in a public
flier in Pankor with Gor-don, Carter sat with the driver, “as befitted
a slave.” Later, when Gor-don received a messenger in his home, Carter
took his assigned place standing behind his master’s chair. This custom
was noted much earlier in the series. In The Gods of Mars, after
Dejah Thoris had left to seek the River Iss, her chair was left empty at
mealtime in the royal palace in Helium. “Behind stood a slave as in the
days when his mistress occupied it.” Slaves were summoned to their master’s
presence by the striking of a gong of some type. In The Chessmen of
Mars, O-Tar did this twice in Manator, and in Helium, Tara called the
slave girl Uthia by lightly tapping on a bronze disc with a wooden stick.

Giving a slave his freedom also was governed by a set
procedure recognized throughout Barsoom. John Carter explained when he
emancipated the reluctant Zanda in Swords of Mars. “I told you once
that you were free, and now I tell you again in the presence of a witness.
You know the customs of Barsoom, Zanda. You are free now, whether you wish
to be or not.” Earlier in the series, Tara gave Uthia her freedom, but
as there was no witness present, Uthia apparently had the right to refuse
freedom, which she did.

Just prior to offering Uthia her freedom, Tara, in a fit
of anger, threatened to send her slave girl to the public market place,
where slaves legally changed hands in the large cities of Barsoom. Valla
Dia was sold on the auction block in Phundahl, but the clearest picture
of the public slave market occurred when Carthoris was the principal bidder
there one day in Greater Helium. “One by one the masters mounted the rostrum
beside the slave block upon which stood their chattels. Briefly and clearly
each recounted the virtues of his particular offering. When all were done,
the major-domo of the Prince of Helium recalled to the block such as had
favourably impressed him. For such he made a fair offer. There was little
haggling as to price.”

In closing this survey of the institution of slavery on
the red planet, let’s return to the question posed earlier. Did the Green
Martians use slaves? If slaves do their master’s work, it would seem the
Green Martians had little need for them. After all, in their society they
had a built-in slave class in their own women. They catered to the needs
of the men, prepared the food, and produced all the manufactured goods
for the community. The Thark females were treated as property, passing
from one owner to another, along with the metal, when one warrior laid
low another. It appears the green men could afford the luxury of killing
all strangers who fell into their hands, forsaking the use of slavery.

It has been suggested that the Green Martians enslaved
Dejah Thoris after capturing her in A Princess of Mars. It’s
true that she was made to labor on one occasion during her captivity among
the Tharks. She told John Carter, “They have had me down in the pits below
the buildings helping them mix their awful radium powder, and make their
terrible projectiles.” However, the Tharks’ purpose in making her work
on that occasion was keeping her away from John Carter. The daughter of
the Jeddak of Helium was an extremely valuable captive in their conflict
with the red race. The Tharks took precautions to keep John Carter and
Dejah Thoris apart so that they could not plan an escape. Having her work
was part of that strategy.

However, even though never seen using them, it turns out
that even the Green Martians sought slaves. However, that fact is not confirmed
until the tenth book of Burroughs’ Martian series. As Llana of Gathol fled
from the green warriors in the ancient city of Horz, the author acknowledged
that the pursuers, “would not quickly forego an opportunity to capture
a red woman for torture or slavery.”